Top 10 Modern Sales Failures Part II

In Part 1 of this article, I covered 5 recent sales failures of the automotive world.  This time we dive into some more odd, idiotic, or just misjudged cars.  Onto the list...

5) Lincoln Blackwood

Luxury Pickup Truck.  That should be a contradictory term.  Pickup trucks are made to haul things, do work, go off-road: these are not luxurious attributes.  A Luxury Pickup Truck is a fairly stupid idea.  Yet, ask Cadillac: people buy stupid.  In their case, Escalade EXT's: an Escalade with a pickup bed.  Considering this is just a Chevrolet Avalanche (admittedly a pretty clever, if ugly, pickup truck) with some Cadillac trim glued on and a larger price tag, they sell quite a lot of them.  Sales were their highest in it's first year of production (2002), selling more than 13,000 units.  Although sales have dropped since then (11.2k in '03, 7k in '06, 4.7k in '08, 2k last year), that's still a lot considering the development budget was about nil, and the profit margins are huge.  I mean, the base MSRP on a new Escalade EXT is more than $63,000, and it's just a GMT900 pickup, they have to be making money hand over fist on every one they sell.

What's funny was that the Escalade EXT was a knee-jerk response from Cadillac to a product almost no one remembers: the Lincoln Blackwood.  The Blackwood was the pickup truck version of the original Navigator, the car that kick-started the whole "gangster full-size SUV" thing here in the US.  Lincoln reasoned that Town Car buyers could really go for something with a bigger trunk.  Remember, this was before the days when people didn't bat an eye at the announcement of a Maserati SUV; a luxury pickup truck was a fresh, new idea.

Unfortunately, they missed the mark.  Quite a bit.  The Blackwood was a combination of truck and SUV, and somehow managed to be less useful than either.  The Navigator donated it's front end and 32v 5.4L 300bhp engine (while F-150's and Expeditions got by with a 5.4L 16v 260bhp engine), while the bed was composite - with a simulated burled black wood surface (get it?) with aluminum pinstripes.  Oh, and the bed was carpeted.  And covered with a powered hard tonneau that opened at a 45° angle.  So, not exactly useful for carrying a load of mulch (who would put mulch in a carpeted bed?  And how would you get it in there?)  or motorcycles (how would you get them in there?)  or really anything.  While a hard cover and carpet is certainly classier than a big open metal square, the whole point of having a pickup bed is - the big open metal square that you carry things in!

That is not a good place to put a navigation screen.  Just saying.

Making matters worse, the Blackwood was only offered in 2WD form, with 19" alloy wheels and low profile tires.  Great for impressing the neighbor's 12 year old kids who watch too many rap videos, not great for pulling a boat out of a greasy boat dock, or travelling in the snow, or any of those other things that pickup trucks are useful for.

As a luxury vehicle, not so great either.  Sure, the Blackwood had Connolly leather seats and all of the circa-2001-era Ford "luxury" goodies (such as a hilariously placed 5" color navigation screen where you had to look directly down to see it), but it's sort of hard to reach into the front of a 4'8" carpeted bed to grab your groceries.  And the lack of rear seat legroom and the upright seating position forced by the pickup bed meant it wasn't as great for schlepping around the family as, say, a Town Car.  Swing and a miss.

A miss, indeed.  With a retail price of more than $52,000 (in 2002!), Lincoln didn't find many takers: a total of 3,356 over 15 months, to be exact.  How bad is that?  In the same year, Ford sold 813,701 F-150 pickups.  So while I'm happy to ridicule the Escalade EXT as being contradictory, at least it was useful as a pickup truck.  Lincoln tried again with the Mark LT in 2006, based on the new F-150.  They sold it for two years to much greater success: 10,000+ in 2006, before discontinuing it after 2008.  It might have had something to do with the all wheel drive, non-carpeted tonneau covered bed, or the $10,000+ in rebated dealers were putting on the hood.  It's still for sale in Mexico, where it's Lincoln's biggest seller.  Go figure.

4) Australian Pontiacs (G8/GTO)

This makes me sad.  Genuinely, truly sad because the GTO and the G8 were actually good cars.  Good in my terms, anyway.  They were handsome (moreso in the G8's case), they had a metric shitload of pushrod horsepower, they went around corners well, and they had nice interiors before GM started making nice interiors.  They were as American as apple pie and cage fights, so of course they came from Australia - where the American ideal of car building never took a not-brief-enough stupid pause for front-wheel-drive, packaging and fuel efficiency in the 80's.

The GTO existed basically because of  Bob Lutz.  The story goes that he took a trip to Australia, home of the almost totally independent Holden division of the General, and drove a V8 Commodore in the early 2000's.  The Commodore was a development of the Opel/Vauxhall Omega B, which was marketed (poorly) in the US as the Cadillac Catera.  Lutz was set on importing one of Australia's RWD models as a performance car for the US, and the Commodore-based Monaro coupe ended up being the choice.  A few changes were made to the Monaro for the US; additional chassis bracing, a repositioned gas tank, the Pontiac front end, etc.

The GTO was a performance car first and a "retro suave" marketing deal second.  It had a 350bhp 5.7L LS1 under the hood in 2004, updated to a 400bhp 6.0L LS2 for '05 and '06, all years available with either a 6-speed manual or a 4-speed automatic.  Unlike the previous Camaro (which stopped production in 2002) and the Mustang, it had a 4-link independent rear end, actually useful rear seats, and a good stereo.  It was quick, too:  LS1 GTO's could do 0-60 in the low 5's with a mid 13 second quarter mile, and 6.0L GTO's were quoted from the factory as doing the same metrics in 4.7 seconds and 13.0 seconds flat, respectively.

The only reason the tires aren't smoking is because it's turned off.

Sales projections were modest:  18,000 units annually.  Still, multiple factors conspired against the GTO.  It was originally intended to be sold in the early 2000's, but by the time all the red tape was cut through, the exchange rate had moved such that the original $25,000 price point had moved up to above $30k, making it notably more expensive than the Mustang.  People weren't in love with the styling, either:  while the new Mustang, Chrysler 300C and Dodge Charger reeked of the muscle car era, the GTO looked a bit like a Grand Am that had been overinflated.  Sure, it was comfortable, fast, and fun - but it was boring looking and overpriced, in addition to having a gas-guzzler tax tacked on.  Sales reflected this:  13.5K units in '04, 11k units in '05, and 13k units in 06.  That's the age old problem with captive imports: they make business sense when they're proposed, but variations in currency can kill them dead in the water.

The G8 is an even sadder story, because it didn't have the boring looks issue that the GTO did.  The G8 was a VE-platform Holden Commodore, which shared underpinnings with the Cadillac CTS and new Camaro.  The VE had a long (7 year) gestation period, with a goal of more efficient globalization in mind - so retooling costs for LHD were minimal.  The G8 got a Pontiac front clip, but is otherwise hard to tell apart from the Commodore, which was a huge seller in Australia.  Engine choices were a 3.6L 24v V6 (256bhp, 5-speed auto) in the base model or a 6.0L V8 (361bhp, 6-speed auto) in the GT at launch.  The GT was a quick car, doing the 60mph run in the low 5's, and in most comparison tests it rated favorably against competitors like the 300C and Charger R/T.

I tried to come up with a snarky caption, but come on: this thing is epic.

The rarest and most desirable of G8's was the limited-production GXP - 1,829 units in total were made in the beginning of 2009.  It featured the 6.2L LS3 V8 from the C6 Corvette with 415bhp, and had an optional Tremec 6-speed manual.  A 4.5 second 0-60 time and Nurburgring-developed suspension tuning made the GXP a very capable performance car, not just in the American standard of going fast in a straight line - here was a car with M5 performance at half the price.  The press absolutely gushed over it.  Motor Trend said "The G8 GXP is a terrific, all-around sport sedan that runs with high-priced Germans. Its strong value message isn't a qualifier either, just a bonus." 

Car & Driver's Eddie Alterman fell in love with the GXP a few months too late (we'll get to that), and I'll excerpt part of his article here.  " If the GXP was great on the highway—controlled ride, excellent ergonomics, and boatloads of power from a 415-hp LS3 V-8—it was nothing short of a revelation at GingerMan (raceway.) It’s a big car that manages its weight beautifully, with all sorts of lucid feedback from the steering, suspension, and body. Its long wheelbase means you feel oversteer coming a mile away, and you can easily change the car’s cornering attitude with its throttle pedal. It felt like a cruder, more flatulent version of another car I love—the E39 BMW M5 of 1999–2003."  Comparisons to what is arguably the most-loved big BMW of all time coming from BMW's loudest supporter - well, that's a ringing endorsement.

At least we can still buy a CTS-V, even if it's 20k more.

Like anything so awesome from GM, it was destined for drastic failure and cancellation.  There isn't a nice way to say how badly the G8 flopped in the US.  Projected sales were again pretty conservative - 30k a year - but the G8 did about half that.  Although the G8's sales year started in March, the fact that they imported 24k and sold 13k by the end of December '08 was not a great sign.  Sales actually picked up a bit in 2009, at one point nearing 3,000 units a month, but by then GM was bankrupt, the federal government stepped in, and Pontiac disappeared along with Saturn, Hummer, and Saab.  Typical GM: get it just right, then throw it in the trash.  Good news for G8 fans who are also police officers: the new Chevrolet Caprice is essentially the same thing.  Bad news if you're not a cop: you can't have one.  Thanks GM!

3) Suzuki X-90

Does your mother know what you do for a living?

An almost legendary failure on the market, it's hard to tell what exactly in the hell Suzuki was thinking with the X-90.  It was supposed to replace the Samurai, slotting below the more spacious Vitara/Tracker mini-utes in Suzuki's 4x4 lineup.  While the Samurai traded on it's rough-and-tumble off-road appearance (as well as appealing to those intrigued by living on the edge, what with Consumer Reports telling everyone it was a rollover-prone death trap), the X-90 was designed to appeal to... umm... hmm.

Not sure.  Sorority girls?  No, it wasn't a car.  Off-roaders?  - can you imagine them getting behind the wheel of a car that is doing it's best impression of Kirby?

In additional to the painfully embarrassing looks, the X-90 was not exactly useful.  It had only two seats (although there was space behind them for cargo), and glass T-tops - which if you stored in the trunk along with the spare tire, left you no room for anything else.  The 1.6L OHC I4 made 95 horsepower, which equated to around a 15 second 0-60mph time, somewhat in contrast with the "off-road sports car" theme Suzuki was going for.  4WD was an option, as was a 4-speed automatic transmission.  Apparently some people do offroad the X-90, and it manages to look even more ridiculous with a lift and huge tires.  I honestly giggled when I saw this picture.

Why do I have my T-tops off in the snow?  Because ladies love it.

Sales failure?  Oh yes.  Suzuki sold the X-90 in the states between 1996-1998, with a total of 7,205 suckers purchasing them.  More than half were sold in '96, then the novelty (if any) wore off - slightly over 2k in 1997, and less than 500 in 1998 before Suzuki pulled the plug.  Hey, at least they're making good stuff today - the Kizashi is pretty awesome.

2) Ford Thunderbird

Pictured: the rare Neiman Marcus Edition Thunderbird.  Because that's way better.

Ford's retro Thunderbird (the 2002-2005 model) was at the forefront of the retro revival wave that swept the early 2000's.  It's a strong example of a warm press reception not necessarily being an indicator of sales success.  The 2002 car revived the line that should've rightfully died the first time in 1997- Ford thinking logically at the time that two entirely different swoopy rear-wheel-drive sports coupes (Mustang and Thunderbird) was about one too many.  But retro mania was sweeping the industry, and the original (1955) Thunderbird was a car people seemed to love again, so the blue oval figured they'd give it a shot.

The new-old Thunderbird was a pretty car, I'll give it that.  It mixed obvious styling elements of the old (that gently dropping fender line, simple round headlights, long hood and trunk with a small cabin) with modern surface detailing.  It even had retro touches like an available hard-top with Opera windows, turquoise trim, etc.  The idea was that the Mustang could take care of the retro-performance-coupe-and-convertible market, and the Thunderbird could take care of the retro-cruiser-convertible-and-coupe market.  They forgot it didn't really work last time.

Hrrm, this looks like a Lincoln.

Not helping a whole lot were the underpinnings.  The Thunderbird used the then-fresh DEW 98 platform, which was the basis of both the Lincoln LS and the Jaguar S-Type.  The Thunderbird shared nearly everything with the Lincoln LS V8 - while the wheelbase was shortened about 7.5" over it's 4 seat counterparts, overall length was down about 5", and it was actually marginally wider than the LS.  It used the same Jaguar-derived 3.9L 32v V8 mated to a long-geared 5-speed automatic, originally with 252bhp (later 280 with the addition of variable valve timing.)  Since it wasn't much smaller, it wasn't much lighter - at 3,772lbs, the LS V8 was somewhat on the heavy side for it's class.  At 3,745lbs, the Thunderbird was a huge, fat pig for it's class.

However, the Lincoln made up for this by having plenty of space for passengers and their things.  The Thunderbird did not.  It was a remarkable ratio of space and weight to usefulness.  This didn't help performance, either: a 7.2 second 0-60 time was not impressive when V6 Accords were ripping off times in the 6's.  The Thunderbird also used the same dashboard as the LS - in the Lincoln, it was conservative and handsome, in the Thunderbird it was more than a bit boring.  Sure, it was a comfortable cruising car for the fashion conscious.  But they were already buying other things.

37mph, about to start understeering into the guardrail

Then there was the price. At nearly $40,000 in 2002, it was a no-go.  Although it was a lot more sophisticated underneath than the Mustang GT Convertible, it still must've been a hard sell.  The Mustang had four usable seats, it's 4.6L 16v V8 made slightly more power and enabled it to actually beat Accords off stop lights, and even the loaded one retailed for $28k - before the inevitable cash-on-the-hood deals, as compared to the "Market Value Adjustments" greedy dealers were trying to stick onto T-Birds when they came out.  The Mustang had quasi-retro looks, and something the Thunderbird didn't: it was actually fun to drive.  It sounded great, it would do a burnout on command, and it put a smile on your face.  The squishy, long-geared and torque-light Thunderbird didn't, really.

All this amounted to pretty disappointing sales figures.  Ford forecast 30,000 units annually for the retrobird, and it hit that target once: in it's first year, 2002.  Like many novelty items, sales nosedived shortly thereafter:  14.5K sales in '03, 12.6K in '04, and 9.2K in it's last year, 2005.  They made some minor changes to the T-Bird over it's lifespan (the aforementioned upgraded motor in '03, new colors, etc.) but nothing ever picked up sales.  There was a supercharged concept Thunderbird that would've fixed the lack of performance, but it never went into production either.  With the massive success of the 2005 redesign of the Mustang, Ford got the retro formula right - and it's still working today.

1) BMW 5-series GT, X6 ActiveHybrid

Is it bad if there are more press photos of your car than actual examples of it in the world?

Model diversification is a good thing.  The more options you offer, the more likely a consumer is to say "gee, that's exactly what I want."  However, like everything in life, too much of anything is too much.  In addition to the quite obvious horsepower wars of the last 15 years among German brands, there's been a head-scratching niche-filling war going on between BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz.  Sometimes these unique niche offerings work - see the Mercedes-Benz CLS Coupe-sedan, which is now in a very successful second generation.  Sometimes it fails miserably.  I'll talk about two here.

They parked it by the sea for this photo because it looks like a whale carcass.

First up, the BMW 5 GT.  Oh my.  The GT is a 5-series built on the 7-series' longer wheelbase, with all sorts of tricks up it's sleeves: more rear leg room.  A hatchback and a trunk.  A choice of two engines, either great or better (300bhp turbo I6, 400bhp twin-turbo V8.)  What's not so great:  it looks like a picture of a 5-series captured with a fisheye lens, all bulged out in the middle and stubby and oddly proportioned.  In theory, it's a pretty appealing vehicle: the size of a 5-series, the interior room of a 7-series, the usefulness of an X3, but BMW hasn't found a whole lot of buyers for their odd concoction.  They didn't have big goals in mind - 6-8k units when it came out in 2010, but it failed pretty miserably: a total of 2,848 people bought a 5 GT in 2010.  Maybe it's because they had to pick between that, the 3-series wagon, the X3, the X5, the X6, the 5-series sedan, and a million other competitors from other brands.  Maybe it's because it's ugly.  They sold less than a thousand in the first third of 2011.  To put it into perspective, BMW sold just over 100,000 3-series models in the US in 2010.  Ouch, dang.

"For this photo, we want to show much body roll it has.  Haha."

Moving on to the X6 ActiveHybrid, and... urgh.  I'm not a fan of the X6 itself, but I suppose some people will pay a premium to stand out, even if that means paying significantly more than the X5 on which it's based for a vehicle which does significantly less.  But the X6 ActiveHybrid is a real head scratcher.  Based on the twin-turbo V8 X6 xDrive50i, the ActiveHybrid adds a set of electric motors, for a combined output of 485bhp and 575lb-ft of torque.  Which is a lot - actually, it's the most powerful Hybrid in the world, a pretty pointless distinction.  The downside is that no matter how many electric motors are in it, a 5,765lb vehicle with all-wheel-drive, a 7-speed gearbox, and twin turbos is not going to get good gas mileage.  Ask Bentley.  The ActiveHybrid proudly returns 19mpg on the highway, which also makes it the least efficient Hybrid out there.  Seriously, an Escalade Hybrid gets better mileage.  The other issue is the price: starting at $89,000 ($95,425 with all the options), the ActiveHybrid is exactly $1,000 less expensive than the "oh my lord, it's so fast I'm going to vomit" X6M, which is also a good 400lbs lighter, and packs 555bhp under the hood.  Sure, it only delivers 17mpg on the highway, but which do you think people who buy $90,000 twin-turbo BMW suv's care more about - 2mpg, or going really fast and having an M badge?

So how many X6 ActiveHybrids did BMW sell in all of 2010?  248.  As a technological halo car, it's a failure.  It proves to the world that BMW doesn't get Hybrids.  As a performance car, it's a failure.  It's just as expensive, but heavier and slower than the X6M.  As anything that makes sense, it's... oh, you get the point.

Of course, the more time I spent researching and compiling this list, I realized there were way more than 10 good examples.  I didn't have room for the Land Rover Freeland, Subaru Baja, Acura ZDX, Mercury Marauder, Hummer H3T, Audi A6 allroad Quattro...  So many things.  Did I leave out your favorite modern sales failure?  Think I'm an idiot?  Leave a comment in the box below!